Auto Enrolment

We’re posting a series of short blogs regarding auto enrolment, if you are an employer and you have staff this WILL apply to you. Too many employers are still burying their heads in the sand, the start date for the largest employer was 2012 and the smallest employers are caught in 2017.

Read on and if your affected please get in touch and we’ll help keep you on the right side of the Pensions Regulator.

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What is Auto Enrolment?

Automatic Enrolment is being staged in over a period of six years, which started with the largest employers in 2012. Automatic enrolment means that, rather than having to choose which pension scheme to join, members of staff are put into one by their employer as procedure. If any staff member decides not to be in the pension scheme, they must opt out. You must write to all your staff to tell them how being auto-enrolled will affect them and allow other staff to join if they request to do so. The new scheme has been introduced to promote people to stay in pension saving, this is because statistically, people are living for much longer yet too many people aren’t saving enough – if anything at all, for what is presumably going to be a long retirement. The law on workplace pensions has been made easier for millions of people to save up for their pension, particularly those on lower incomes. All UK employers have to enrol their staff automatically into a workplace pension if they meet certain criteria and make contributions. If you are an employer in the UK, you must start enrolling staff into a pension scheme from your staging date, though there is an option to postpone the enrolment for three months.

Does it apply to me?

Are you an employer in the UK, with staff working for you? – If so, then yes, automatic enrolment applies to you and there are things you’ll need to do. We’ll be covering these in our next post.